Life Goes On
by M. Darling
Summary: A Mockingjay epilogue of sorts, compiled of vignettes. Rated for angst, mild language, and Haymitch.
1. 8 Years Later

8 Years Later

Katniss's Point of View

My family is a motley crew. Young, old, fresh, scarred. We are all types.

They sit around me at the dinner table. Stuffing their faces or staring grimly at the wall. And I take them all in, I pick out their faces, I hold them each in my memory. Each individual is distinct, each is a soul with a different story. But all the stories intersect somewhere. In the eight years since the rebellion, we've kept close to each other. How could we not? We hold each other together when nothing else can.

Annie's sweet face is across from me. It looks detached. Dark hair streams down her shoulders unchecked, dangling dangerously close to the gravy as she leans across the table for salt. She usually keeps to herself during these reunions, but I know she takes comfort in the hubbub of the group. The woman is as lovely as ever, though visibly worn out. Raising a child alone has been tough for her, unstable creature that she is. I always notice the grief etched into the lines on her face, the occasional quivering of her lip. She has been suprisingly strong for her son, though. Tiny Rollin brings out the best in Annie Odair. When she leans down to listen to the 7-year-old boy gushing about the orange rolls, I can see a resilience in her green eyes, a glimmer of life as she laughs and nods and obligingly dumps another roll onto his plate. Finnick would be happy to know that she hasn't given up.

Rollin is a re-creation of Finnick. I wonder if that's hard for Annie. He has Finnick's sea green eyes and his Grecian profile. He is still young, but the resemblance is clear in the beautiful child's face. Not in his hair, though. His hair is like his mother's: a dark-chocolate excess of waves. He talks very intelligently for such a small boy, and Annie tells me that he loves the sea. He calls me "Auntie Katniss", which surprisingly tickles me every time I hear it. It's hard not to grin when I talk to the kid. He can only be described as a breath of fresh air.

I grin and wink at Rollin from across the table, to which he responds by quickly sinking down into his chair, giggling. Kid's got a thing for the ladies.

Haymitch slouches next to Annie. His whiskers run rampant on his jaw, his hair is unmistakably laced with gray. I love the grouch like a parent, although we bicker like gassy old men. Ours is a conflicting relationship. I do not interfere with his drinking habits, although they've become progressively worse over the years. Who needs a functioning liver, anyway? Not Haymitch. He seems fine. He keeps busy between drinking and tending to his geese, something that he denies taking pleasure in, although I know better. He's sober tonight, and I'm thankful for that. I like to see the unclouded laughter in his Seam eyes as he jokes with Johanna, who sits next to him. Cheeky birds of a feather, those two.

You could say that my strange friendship with Johanna has grown over the years. I glance diagonally at her. Spiky auburn hair, massive brown eyes brimming with their signature smug self-confidence. That's Johanna. The woman still intimidates me frequently, although I know that she has a soft underbelly. She has a boyfriend of sorts back in District 7 now. Deck Lafayette. I met him once when they came to visit Peeta and I. The man obviously adores her, and it's about time that someone did.

Johanna and Gale actually get along well, too. They have a similar inferno blazing inside of them, though even Gale is afraid of the more explosive flame inside of Johanna sometimes.

A saturnine Gale solemnly occupies the chair to my left. We talk softly about his life in District 2, his siblings, his job, light subjects that cannot arouse any pain. I do love having him back, even if our connection is not the same as it was. Our friendship, once charred beyond recognition, has been gingerly mending, piece by piece. Scarred, altered, yes. But mending. Gale is my best friend. For just a moment, as I look at his face, his permanently somber expression, my mind travels to the day, four years ago, when I found him in the snow-covered woods. It was a Sunday. He had been waiting for me, because he knew that Sunday was my hunting day. He was close to tears, choking out apologies. He told me he missed me. He missed his hunting partner. I had wanted to tell him that his hunting partner didn't exist anymore.

That was before I had fully found myself again.

Gale isn't a boy anymore. He's taller and stronger. Wiser, even. The scruffy stubble on his chin never goes away. Life has returned to his gray eyes, though something still haunts them. Bombs. Guns. Shattering mountains. There's a bloody battle going on behind those glassy orbs, I can tell.

When Gale breaks off our conversation and begins talking with Johanna, my attention goes to my husband. My fingers are curled around Peeta's beneath the table. His thumb is tracing repetitive pictures on the back of my hand. Flowers, I think, or flames. He is speaking gently to a beaming Annie. Peeta alone can make Annie feel comfortable when she comes to visit. When her eyes begin to look lost, Peeta always comes to her rescue, pulling her out of a reverie that probably included flashbacks of the Games. Like Finnick did when he was here.

Peeta is changed, of course. The war changed him. Mentally and physically he is scarred. But he _is_ still Peeta. My Peeta. And he is more handsome to me than anyone else. He lets his hair grow out to hide the scars on his scalp, and to cover the faded burns on his forehead. I'm just happy that the flames didn't touch his eyelashes. His flaxen curls rustle as he laughs with Annie. _That laugh_. A sound so welcoming. A sound I once thought was forbidden to me and the rest of the world. It's beautiful. And I'm sure it's working wonders on Annie's mood. Actually, it's probably working wonders on everyone's mood, even those who wouldn't care to admit it.

I lean against Peeta's solid shoulder, and his strong arm instinctively encompasses me and holds me fast to his side. Dependable. I snuggle closer to him, basking in his warmth as if he were the sun. Which, actually, he is. My eyes start closing of their own accord, and I feel myself drifting. I allow it. Because really, I get so few moments to feel perfectly happy and burden-less like this. This is exactly what we fought for, tooth-and-nail, blood and sweat, soul and sanity. To be safe and content with family. With no threats hanging above our heads like a guillotine. And we deserve it.


	2. The Man in the Boat

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games, or Annie Cresta Odair. Suzanne Collins does.**

The Man in the Boat

_(3 years later)_

Annie's POV

I lie awake in bed. My blankets are on the floor in a tangled heap... They had tried to strangle me. I had to fend them off myself. Silver moonlight trickles into this dark abyss where I lie, crawling across the floor, curving around my face. It glints off the photographs that hang on the wall. They are of him. Of us.

I hear the rhythmic pull of the water, the rumbling savage that is the ocean. It is only yards from my window. It used to sooth me. But nothing can do that anymore. Except maybe his son, who sleeps soundly in the next room. Rollin's face flashes in front of my eyes, so like his father's, and I am momentarily mollified. My breathing slows. I swipe away the wetness brimming in my eyes.

Wetness. Water. He loved the water. More water flows from my eyes as I see him in my mind, slicing through the waves with decisive strokes of his strong arms. I see him pulling me into the water with him. Chuckling, spewing water out of his mouth. Smirking that smirk. Kissing me. Perching on top of the waves in his green boat. Green like his eyes. I see his sun-kissed shoulders shaking with laughter at my joke. Back when I made jokes. I see him diving headlong into the water like a torpedo. He _was_ the water...

More water is dripping from my eyes, too much now. I'm choking. I heave myself out of bed shakily. I feel like a dinghy in a hurricane. My legs threaten to give out. I hiccup miserably.

I think I catch a glimpse of bronze hair outside my window. No, it's a potted palm frond. I lurch out onto the balcony that overlooks the ocean. The seashells embedded in the cement press sharply into the calloused soles of my feet. I barely register the feeling.

Stars stud the navy sky. A warm, moist breeze that smells like the sea creeps through my hair and clings to my skin. It forces its way down my throat. The breeze smells like him. I breath the soft air in deeply. Exhale. Just like he told me to do when the horrors consume me. But of course it barely helps.

I scan the calm ocean, almost hysterically, searching for his boat even when I know it's not there. He would sail at night sometimes. Out on the ocean was the only place he could think, he said. And I used to sit on this balcony into the early morning, waiting for him to come ashore. From my perch I could see where he would dock. I would watch him make the short trek to Victor's Village. I would hear him come in through the back door. He spent his nights at my house, wrapped in my embrace. He would always smell like brine. His hair would be knotted with salt.

Tonight, I don't know what I'm doing out here. There is nobody to wait for.

The water pours from my eyes again without warning. I feel broken. Why did I come out here? To escape the pain and the night terrors? Because I can't run away from them, no matter what I do. They lurk outside as well as inside, perhaps behind the potted plants, perhaps on my roof. Waiting for the moment to attack me and override my senses. I begin to turn to flee back inside.

But then I see it. My heart stops and clogs, and then resumes again at a furious pace. My breath hitches. I let out a soft cry.

There it is.

That is his boat, bobbing close to shore in the dark water. I am sure it's his boat. I _know_ that boat. I've seen this very picture a million times. And, as far away as he may be, I _know_ the man standing at the tiller. He's coming home to me!

His name is forming on my lips. I'm about to scream it. I nearly throw myself over the balcony in an attempt to get to him... I can't get to him fast enough... Can this be real? I don't care. It's _him_... But something strikes me. A realization hits me like a soft slap. Suddenly, I just _know_. I know I can't go to him. I'm certain of it. I breathe in. Exhale.

It is him, out there in his boat. But I can't go to him, and he can't come to me. He's here to let me know that he hasn't left. He stands with his hands in his pockets, simply watching me. And I watch him right back. Warmth spreads through my body. I can't make out his face, but I can imagine it in my mind. A sad smile, a tenderness in his eyes. His hair is probably in its unruly, wavy state from the moisture that rises off the water. He's probably wearing his favorite khaki pants and rust-colored rain jacket. He's probably whispering apologies.

_Finnick, I forgive you. I just don't understand._

Water is streaming down my cheeks again. I don't know how long I remain on the balcony, watching him. A long time. But I am afraid that when I go inside, the boat will leave. I never want that boat to leave. I never want him to sail away. He can't go again.

But then the salty wind picks up and caresses my cheek, drying my tears, and it feels like his warm hand. So I decide that I trust him to stay there. Of course I trust him. He came back, didn't he? He came back to protect me. I bid him a farewell in my head. Kiss him goodbye.

And I sleep the remainder of the night in a peaceful cocoon. I have dreams of pristine days when the sun is hot and white, and the ocean is as transparent as stained glass. I dream of my beautiful baby boy. I dream of him swimming and playing and laughing like children should. I dream of beautiful birds, and happy people with smiles that crinkle their eyes. I dream of my family. I dream of seafood. I dream of knots and riggings. I dream of the man in the boat.


	3. Bread

Bread

_(13 years later)_

Katniss's POV:

Fear. That's all I feel when I look down at my protruding stomach. Fear for the little girl inside me. There's no way to protect her from the cruelties that will come her way. Oh, there WILL be cruelties. I know that better than anyone else.

I slouch out of the bathroom, where I had been unhappily appraising my new bulging figure and contemplating all the reasons why I shouldn't have children. Peeta wasn't there when I woke up this morning, and I've been throwing up for an hour, so I'm not in a good mood.

I begin to make my wobbly way down to the kitchen. I move too fast on the stairs, my stomach twists and feel like throwing up again. Morning sickness is a downer.

Peeta is not in the kitchen, which throws me into an even crabbier mood. Where is he? Did he have a nightmare? Why didn't he wake me?

Before I set off to look somewhere else, however, I notice the loaf of purplish bread sitting conspicuously on the kitchen table. Curious, I lurch towards it. Peeta has never made purple bread before. I tear a chunk off the end, and see that the inside is swirly like marble, and it's infested with hot, gooey purple berries. It looks amazing. And biting into it, I realize it tastes even better than it looks. I take another chunk and down it. Then another. And another. Then the loaf is gone, and I'm staring at my sticky purple fingers, wondering if Peeta would have wanted some too.

I sigh. My incessant eating lately is unsettling. I leave the kitchen sheepishly, again in search of Peeta.

I find him in the backyard, painting with his back to me. He must have had a nightmare early this morning... Painting usually helps him numb the pain when I can't. Was his nightmare that bad?

"Peeta?" I speak his name softly. "Did you have a nightmare? Why didn't you wake me?"

I sit next to him and wrap my arms around his torso. Only now can I see his painting. It is me. A rear view of me sitting down. My black hair falls free down my back, and I'm leaning over something in my lap... cradling it. It's a baby girl with blond hair and stormy gray eyes. Her jovial blob of a face is fresh and rosy, painted with beautiful pastels. It looks like he painted it in a hurry, but it's still beautiful. Powerful. I see his emotions in every stroke. I see how happy the baby will make him. How happy it already has made him.

"No, no nightmares" he says. He smiles down at me and drapes his arm over my shoulder. I run my hand through his curls, which are in a frustrated tangle. "I got up early to make breakfast. Then I had the idea for this". He gestures to his work. "I couldn't go back to sleep until I painted it. Do you... like it?" His blue eyes probe mine.

"It's beautiful" I whisper. It really is. My hand goes to my stomach. The picture is a soft world where my baby can be safe in my arms. Always safe. I wish I could believe that painting. I wish it could be real. "Peeta?"

"Yes?"

"The purple bread was really good. I kind of... ate it all"

I must have looked guilty, because he chuckles. "Katniss, I already had breakfast. That was for you. And the baby".

I smile up at him. "Oh. Well the baby liked it. A lot".

* * *

The next morning, when I groggily stumble down to the kitchen, Peeta is extracting a loaf of bread from the oven. I don't recognize the smell, but it makes me salivate.

"Morning, sunshine" he says with a grin. I snort. I don't feel like sunshine right now. I've been puking my innards out for the good part of the morning. He sets the loaf the table and pulls me into a bear hug.

"What kind of bread is that?" I ask into his chest.

"It has parmesan cheese and rosemary in it. I thought you'd like it".

He is right. I like it. It's even better than yesterday's.

* * *

The next morning, I come down to heavy lemon bread with icing on it, which I gleefully scarf down.

The morning after that it's a dark brown bread that Peeta calls pumpernickel.

The morning after that, a crispy golden bread with shards of bacon in it.

Then a batch of pumpkin muffins with cinnamon.

A dense bread with a strong coffee flavor.

A rust-colored bread that tastes like tomatoes and basil.

One morning I come down to cheese buns, which I like better than any of the others so far.

Another morning he even uses his colorful food dyes to make me a rainbow bread that tastes more like a cake.

It goes on like this for a while. I find myself in a good mood when I get up in the morning, more than ready to go downstairs and eat whatever yummy pastry Peeta has baked for me. The baby likes it as well.

* * *

One night, when I'm snuggled in bed with Peeta, I ask him why he makes me all the strange bread. He thinks about it for a while before answering.

"Because I don't want this to be a scary experience for you, Katniss. I know having a baby frightens you. And I wish there was more I could do to make you see that it's going to be okay. I know you're afraid you won't be a good parent. You're afraid that our child will have as hard a life as we have had. But... those are just risks we have to take. When you're having a bad day, or a bad month, all I can really do is bake you yummy bread to make it a little easier. And if it helps you at all, then I love doing it".

I tighten my grip around his neck and kiss his cheek.

"You're going to make me really big with all that bread, you know" I tease.

He laughs and pulls me even closer. "You? Big? It's not possible".

I sigh into his neck. Maybe I'm wound too tight. I know that I can't protect my daughter from everything. I can't shelter her from the bad things that will inevitably happen to her. But, with Peeta as her father, I know my daughter will always have someone to lean on.

* * *

**Author's Note: This is for Lindsay, who reviews my story all the time, and she requested a one-shot from Katniss's perspective. Thanks to you guys that have reviewed this! They really do make my day!**


	4. The Little Duck and the Little Calf

The Little Duck and the Little Calf

_(8 years later)_

Gale's Point of View

I make no noise as I wind in between the looming pines, keeping to the shadows, my loaded bow at the ready. I belong here in the woods. Any sort of woods. The woods of District 2, the woods of District 12, it's all the same to me. The trees here in 2 are farther apart and more spiny than the trees in 12. The grass is coarser. The earth is drier and harder. The shrubs are more stubborn. The air is more biting. But it all brings a twisted sort of comfort just the same.

I come to a silent halt in the inky shadow of a pine tree that skirts a small clearing. Just yards in front of me, lapping up the icy water in a small stream that runs through the shrubs, is a robust female moose and her baby. I notice how the mother stands over the baby protectively. Her eyes scan the clearing for movement, wary of a predator that may hurt her child. She does not notice me, the furless two-legged predator hiding among the low boughs of the pine. It would be effortless to pick them both off right now. The mother first, then the calf.

I noiselessly raise my bow. The mother still does not notice. This will be easy. So easy. My mind wanders to Greasy Sae, and how she might use venison in one of her disgusting soups. But then I remember that I am in District 2. And that Sae is probably dead.

I clear my disobedient mind and focus on the shaft of my arrow. Ready, aim...

_Fire_. _Now_.

_Okay... Now_.

_Now._

_...Now._

_Uh, yeah. Now._

_Now._

_ Now! Just shoot, idiot! _

I can't bring myself to fire. I can't bring myself to kill the mother and her calf. My fingers don't react to the voice in my brain. I stare at my calloused hand that clenches the end of the arrow and the bowstring. Perfect form. Perfect aim. They're sitting ducks! Every time I imagine myself releasing the arrow, though, I feel sick.

I stand stock still, arrow poised, for minutes. When the small moose family finally patters out of the clearing, I relax my bow and sink down to a sitting position on the prickly ground. What just happened? Something had rendered me incapable of killing the mother moose and the baby that she was so dutifully protecting. And I think I know what it was.

Katniss.

I think watching the dam standing guard over her foal had reminded me of the way Katniss used to protect Prim. Her own little duck. I remember the day when she went into the bloody Games for her little sister. To keep her out of danger. I remember her fierce campaign for a world where her sister would never be threatened by the Capitol. And then, I remember how I caused all her attempts to be in vain. I designed a bomb that killed Primrose, ripped her family apart, turned my Catnip into a hollow shell of a girl with a patchwork quilt of skin grafts. Me, that was all me. My eyes begin to sting, and I swipe at them furiously, probably smearing dirt all over my face. I had been on the brink of destroying the little moose family in the same way.

The rebellion was eight years ago. I have told myself every day since that Prim's death wasn't my fault. That I'm not a bad person. On particularly bad days, though, it's hard to believe my own words. There's often a voice that whispers to me about every unforgivable thing I've ever done, all the lives I have destroyed. And I listen to it. On bad days.

Today is definitely a bad day. So I try to stifle my dark thoughts before they stifle me. _Good things, think of good things..._

I remember that I will see Katniss next week. There's a dinner at her and Peeta's house. Johanna is going, Annie and Rollin are going. I am going. To see Katniss. Because I'm happy when I'm with my best friend. Even if she's not always the same girl that I knew before the war. Because she's not. Sometimes she is only a hollow-eyed girl that tugs on her raven braid and knows only how to scream, and sometimes the smoldering fire that I love leaves her ashy eyes altogether. But Peeta has always been able to bring her back. For him I feel only gratitude.

I remind myself that Katniss has forgiven me. Even if I haven't forgiven myself. It took me years, but I have gained her trust and her friendship back. Step by step, we healed together. And I'm not angry at her for marrying Mellark. I'm not even angry at Mellark. I'm only angry at myself, for doing the things I did to lose her in the first place.

I remain slumped on the ground, cradled between the knobbly roots of the pine tree, for a long time. I'm not certain how long. I don't care. I just sit, and I think.

For eight years now, I have lived in the past, in the time of the rebellion, never moving on from the things I regret doing. I haven't settled down, I've shut almost everyone out of my life. The years have been a blur of anger and pain. The odds have never been in my favor, and I've never willed them to be. Now... now what? What are you going to do now, Gale Hawthorne? I don't have the answer to that question. I wish I did.

What am I going to do now?

**A/N: Sorry if I took too long to update! School got busy, I got lazy, yada-yada-yada. Anyways, this is short, but I wanted to establish where Gale is 8 years after the war: angsty and full of self-loathing. BUT. He'll grow out of it... No worries. I really do like the guy.**

**So anyways. Please review this! Constructive criticism is my favorite. Tell me the good AND the bad. Grazie!**


	5. The Dancing Family

The Dancing Family

_(23 Years Later)_

Haymitch's Point of View:

They dance in the tall grass in the center of Victor's Village. The girl on fire and her family. Her daughter, Sonnet, leads the dance. She's got a rhythm that booms in her pretty little head. It never leaves. It's been there since she was a baby. She's always dancing, pirouetting, tapping that little foot to a beat only she can hear. And she's got them all dancing right along with her. She's infected them. Her parents, her little brother. They all have the District 12 dancing blood, after all. And there's a transformation in Peeta and Katniss when they dance with their children. They are purely happy. Their little girl does not know how much she has helped them.

Their hands are clasped. They spin around and around in circles, giggling. They will all get sick soon. Katniss is laughing loudly, a sound once forbidden to her. Peeta is laughing with her. Another miracle. If his leg hinders him, I do not notice. I can only see his radiant smile. And I am happy for him. Maybe a little jealous. The boy deserves this family. This twirling, happy family. He deserves the ebony-haired woman that he is spinning with.

As the sun sets behind my house, the dancing family is bathed in gold. Their swaying figures are illuminated against he fading skyline of District 12. And If I did not know any better, I would think that they have always been this happy. A picturesque family that dances together in grass that tickles their knees. Beaming, squealing. The epitome of joy.

But I do know better. I know they are made of as much pain as they are happiness. That the two parents, my former tributes, are still haunted with ghosts from the past. That they live an entirely different life when the sun goes down. One full of dead children. Murderous children. Everything children should _not_ be. I know this all too well.

When they stop twirling long enough to catch their breath, Katniss spies me watching their frolicking from the shadows of my ramshackle porch. Her long hair is tangled, she is windswept, but euphoria shines in her Seam eyes. She beckons me out. To join the picturesque spinning family in their prancing. And I grunt in answer. When they dance with their kids, I will admit that it's cute. I won't say it out loud, but it's cute. When I dance, however-Haymitch, the wasted old gasbag-it's not that cute. In fact, I'll probably puke all over every single one of them. I shake my head at my old tribute and gesture to the flask of fire whiskey clenched in my withering hand. She understands. She gives me a small smile as her daughter tugs her back into the fray.

I kick my feet up on the railing of my porch and watch them as they begin an old polka step. This District holds nothing for me except those four figures right there. The figures capering like buffoons in the twilight. Yes, I might as well admit it, I like being "Uncull Hay-meetch" to two beautiful little children. I like their fresh cherub faces, and I am always hoping that they never become as screwed up as I am. Honestly, they probably won't be. I like it when they come and play with my stupid geese, which they seem to be fascinated with. I like being next door to my old tributes as they raise a family, in a safe world that I helped create. I like watching the family dance together. I like knowing that their lives went on. And every single day, I wish that I had let _my_ life go on, too.

**Author's Note: Hi... So you guys probably thought that I left this story to the dogs. Because I've been horrid about updating. Sorry if that really put a damper on your life, but school has been pretty hectic. It swallows up my free time like a mother vortex.**

**The inspiration for this piece came after I re-read Finnick's wedding scene in Mockingjay. I loved how everyone from District 12 knew how to get their boogie on!**

**So yes. If this made any sort of impact on you, good or bad, tell me! Review and give me some tips for improvement if you have a second. Thanks much!**

**Okay, one more thing... HAYMITCH IS AWESOME.**


	6. Tradition

**Suzanne Collins owns Johanna Mason and The Hunger Games.**

Our Little Tree

_(Ten years Later)_

Johanna's Point of View

We hunted this tree out in the woods early this morning. This runt of a pine tree, with just a few tufts of needles on its flimsy limbs. I'd say it's the tree-like equivalent of an underfed child with several bald spots. Truly a pathetic sight to behold, but I don't care. I love it. I bonded with the scraggy thing when I saw it huddled in the shadow of its colossal pine tree brother this morning. Maybe some deeply-and I mean _deeply-_ burrowed maternal instincts took over me, and that's why I ran to it immediately. Maybe it was because I saw a piece of myself in the little thing: it was the weakling that nobody would expect to win any sort of award. I don't know. But trust me, it will grow bigger than all the other freaking trees. Like I did.

Deck is hunkered down on the ground next to me. He's digging the midget pine tree a nice little hole in our yard, in front of our hulking log home. Capitol made. Capitol size. Deck is annihilating our lawn in the digging process. And I really don't care. My husband was skeptical about the runt tree at first. He claimed that it is more of a stick than a tree. But he is going along with it, because he doesn't usually argue with me. And he knows I always win.

This is a marriage tradition we have in 7. A newly wed couple typically plants a sapling together in their front yard. They can have their pick from the dense forest on the outskirts of the District. Cypress, eucalyptus, allthorn, pine, aspen, hemlock. Whatever they want. The sapling represents their new life together. The lovers watch it grow taller and stronger over the years. From their kitchen window. It gets tougher with time. It gets wiser. And their love for each other mirrors its growth. That's how all the saps describe it, at least.

The tradition doesn't mean anything to me. Because planting a tree won't change anything. I love Deck, Deck loves me. He shows me every day. And it feels so impossibly good, to be loved like that. Tree or no tree.

But, I figured that the pine tree will be something that I actually like about my home in Murderer's Village.

So, while I'm reflecting, Deck finishes the hole. Our runt's new home. It is a deep, ugly brown pothole in the scraggy grass. But it's for our sapling, so it's a success. I look at Deck to gauge his expression. It is pleased, pondering. He's panting, because he did all of the digging. Technically we were supposed to do it together, but I just sat on the ground and tried in vain to chat with him while he was dutifully working. Oh, well.

His sandy hair is plastered to his face with sweat, the tentacle-like tendrils encircling his head. Poor guy. Still, I can't help laughing out loud, because it looks so funny.

"What?" He puffs. A lopsided smile quirks his cheeks up. His chocolate eyes are laughing. They do that whenever I laugh.

"Nothing at all."

He chuckles, not offended in the least. Good old Deck.

We place the little tree in its ditch together, and we use the pile of loose dirt to cover its fragile roots. The dirt runs through my fingers and burrows under my fingernails. Refreshingly cool. My fingers are more than accustomed to the consistency of the dirt. It's the clay of my home District, after all. An old, grimy friend. A childhood playmate.

Our hands work together in the clay. My small ones and his larger rough-hewn ones, overlapping, packing the dirt firmly. And soon our tree is planted. It stands up all by itself, in all its 3-foot-tall glory. Solid. Independent. It almost looks self-confident.

Almost.

And Deck is beaming at me. He is happy right now, I can tell. The tradition was important to him. What a teddy bear he is. His lips are quirked up. His eyes are crinkling in that beautiful, twinkling way. _At me_. _His eyes are smiling at me_. And I melt. Because even though I boss him around constantly, he can do that to me. He can melt me. Damn him.

I really can't help launching myself into his strong arms and tackling him to the ground with a kiss.

**A/N:**** I'm not entirely happy with this, but I felt the need to update something today. I'll revise it later. If you have any tips on how I can improve this one-shot, please feel free to share them. I'd love it.**

**And yes, I know this is a little on the fluffy side. But they can't all be angsty! I was just in a good mood when I wrote this! Plus, Johanna deserves a happy ending. Let's face it… Her life kinda sucked before this.**

**If you guys review, tell me the good and the bad! Thank you, thank you. Peace out!**


	7. I Can Do It

I Can Do It

_(5 months later)_

Johanna's POV:

_I can do it_.

That was my motto. I could say that, and I wouldn't be lying. My brain used to work that way.

_I can kill all those kids. I can come home a winner. I can make my family winners, too. I can follow my own rules. Johanna's rules. I can bring my tribute home. I can take out the Capitol. I can take out Snow. I can do it. I don't fail. Ever._

I used to think like that all the time. I used to be tough. And it really wasn't that long ago.

Before the war, I wasn't afraid of much. I felt invincible. It was how I felt in the Arena, it was how I felt about everything. It was simply the raw essence of Johanna Mason. These days, though, I have to give myself verbal encouragement just to go outside when it's raining. Yes, I _can_ do it. But it scares the hell out of me. Sometimes I ask myself where the familiar, snarky Mason girl went. I liked her. She was so sure of everything. I keep looking for her, but she is long gone.

I think she drowned.

I don't know when she's coming back.

They released me from the District 13 hospital months ago. That underground sewer hole where you're not allowed to hope. Only calculate your odds of survival. The damn doctors in khaki pants told me things… They told me that we won the war. That I was considered emotionally stable now. That Snow was to be executed. That last one made me laugh for a long time, and I didn't feel bad.

They also told me that children were detonated, and that the Mockingjay had finally cracked. They told me that my best friend had been decapitated.

I didn't want to hear most of what they told me. So they let me go. And I wish I could say that I had had a place to go to. But I didn't.

The world had suddenly become too big, and it was smothering me. I was alone. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I was supposed to be. I wasn't sure if I could do anything at all. I think that was when I realized that I was drowning; or that I already had drowned. In water and screams and white, white light. The confident part of me was submerged, miles underwater. _I can do it_ no longer meant anything.

Part of me said that I wanted to go home. Of course, I knew that I didn't have one. Not really. Home means family. It means belonging somewhere. It's a refuge.

I didn't consider my Capitol-made home in Victor's Village a refuge.

I tried to remember what I did before the war: Victory tours. Mentoring. I threw axes around. I wandered through the woods. There was the occasional shallow hook-up when the stagnation became bad enough. But I couldn't exactly do that for the rest of my life. It frustrated me that I didn't even know what I _wanted_. And if I ever figured it out... Well, the _I can do it_ part of my ego was gone. I was clawless and purposeless.

I was suddenly given the task of piecing together something that never really existed: my life. And did I even care if it was pieced together? I didn't know that, either. It scared me, all the things I didn't know.

For a long time, I was just empty. Panem didn't need Johanna Mason. Not a single individual needed me. I was small. Insignificant. I was no longer a victor. People looked at me the way they had looked at me the day I was Reaped. There was pity in their eyes. If they knew exactly what it was like to be me, there wouldn't be pity. There would be understanding, and that was what I needed. I didn't like being the weakling, just another victim. I couldn't cope with that.

So initially, I did what made sense. I built a protective shell around the weakling that I didn't want people to see. A shell of snide comments and hurtful sarcasm. Of indifference. Nobody wanted to come in contact with the shell, because they were afraid of it. And I think that's what I wanted. But of course, I wasn't sure.

Inside the shell was just a scarred girl. That was me. The new me that I was ashamed of. I was afraid to wash my hands, and I was afraid to take a shower. I didn't believe in myself. From the outside, yes, I looked like Johanna Mason the Victor. But there were people that knew who really lived behind that façade. The stupid doctors knew. Katniss knew.

I tried desperately to hide the identity of the hiding girl from anyone else.

Meanwhile, in my shell, I could think. And I didn't understand when I started thinking. My mind was about as clear as my reputation. No epiphanies. Nothing. Hadn't I given everything to bring _them_ down? I was referring to the sickos that had been pulling the strings up in the multi-colored, chrome-covered Capitol, making their Panem puppet dance to a sadistic tune. I was referring to the President and the black-hearted pets that he breeds. I was referring to the fact that I had given every part of me to see them all fall. And it wasn't enough.

Eventually, of course, those whack-jobs did fall. Hard. But that's why I was confused. Because they were still destroying me, even though they weren't really here. _He_ was destroying me. The bloody president. His bloated lips whispered threats when I closed my eyes. He was still hurting me. Making me afraid. Making sure that no, _I couldn't do it. _

But he's dead by now. So why do I still listen to him? I can't help it. Maybe he meant for it to be that way. Because he was the kind of snake that plans in advance how to most effectively scar his victims.

Because of him, though, I became a Peacekeeper. The kind that actually keeps the peace. I make sure that Panem heals properly. And I can work to undo everything that flower-scented serpent spent his life building up. Fear. Oppression. National bloodlust. I make sure that nut jobs like Snow don't grow up to achieve whatever barbarous aspirations they may have. Such as killing children. That's what I do. I can do that. And every day, one more piece of the shell falls off. Tiny piece by tiny piece. I _think_ I'm healing.

And having been a Peacekeeper for months already, I'm seeing Panem in a new light. It's not necessarily a pretty one. I initially thought that Panem was out of danger, and that its many deadly poisons were all flushed out with with its tyrant. But I was wrong. I've realized that no matter what I do in my lifetime, the poisons will never leave. Evil still stays. It's in every nook and cranny. The Games, though now deceased, wrote it on every wall, stitched it into every family. Bad spirits will line Panem for lifetimes.

I have realized that you cannot cover up the murder of thousands of children with a new government like you can cover up poop with sand.

But I'm trying. And maybe I don't have a country-sized bandage. Maybe I can't completely fix a problem this big. But I can try my best. I _can_.

**A/N: I'm back! And here's some angst for you, to balance out the fluff of last chapter. It may be slightly dark, but this is a tortured Johanna fresh out of war. What do you expect? I changed the rating to T just in case. I dunno. And ugh, writing this put me in a bad mood! Expect happier next chapter. But it had to be done, I think!**

**Thanks to every single person that has reviewed this little brainchild of mine, especially those who review every chapter. I. Love. You. And thanks to my readers who prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves. You're cool too.**

**So… constructive criticism, anyone? You know I love it. **


	8. The Bird

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games, or Katniss Ever-grumpy. :)**

**And NO, this chapter has nothing to do with a certain obscene hand gesture. You know the one I'm talkin' about.**

The Bird

_(About 2 years later)_

Katniss's POV:

It wasn't until the other day that I remembered.

It was an incident, small and insignificant, not worthy of a second thought for most people, but it forced me to remember what I had forgotten. It made me realize that I had never left the hated spotlight, and it made me question whether or not the spotlight was still hated.

It revived the bird that I had left behind, the Mockingjay, and exactly what she betokens to the people. And, because of this occurence, I willingly donned her beautiful wings again.

It was a glass-is-half-empty kind of day for me, the day that it happened. Everything looked monotonous. Off-whites and beiges, grays and grungy coppers. The rain falling outside reminded me of briny, sooty tears no matter which way I looked at them, and I had come dangerously close to drop-kicking the filthy cat multiple times. I was slowly sinking into a spiral of frustration and guilty memories. I certainly didn't feel like any fiery bird of freedom.

I had days like these from time to time. They were normal. To be expected. Usually Peeta was the only thing I needed to make the glass half full again. He was a painkiller, as it were. The sunshine itself. Because his golden hair, his electric blue eyes, and his coral pink lips were so _colorful_.

It was him. He was just colorful.

Peeta was at the bakery today, though. It had opened months ago, and it greedily sucked away the time that he usually spent with me. Day in and day out, my sunshine was icing confections and chatting with customers downtown. I visited him almost every day, when I couldn't stand to be lonely any longer. We would talk, sometimes we would laugh. We just liked being together. Today especially, I had the need to get out of this hollow house and into his toasty oven room, where I truly had a home.

So I bundled my body into layers of clothing, some of it mine, and some of it Peeta's. I was a plaid and denim Russian nesting doll, but I was warm. During the frozen winters in District 12, this measure was completely necessary. I made the short trek into town, defying the bullet-like raindrops that wanted to see my demise. They were frigid. Pelting, pelting, pelting, as I exited Victor's Village and entered the town.

The sky was heavily overcast, brewing something vile and grave thousands of feet above me. The town square underneath it looked sad. Very blue-gray. I involuntarily recalled all the bad memories that had taken place here in this very square as I trotted across it as quickly as possible. Ghosts lived here, and I was afraid of them.

Everything in town was different, too. Reconstruction was far from over, but I could already see the old District 12 melting away with the new buildings. The houses were pretty colors, square and perfect. The stones were clean. The whipping posts were gone. All good changes, but it still wasn't my home. This new District belonged to a new generation. I felt like an interloper when I walked through it.

All of my reflections were further contributing to my dismal day. At least the sunshine was only a block up the road now, and I was feeling toastier with every step.

I reached the heavy wooden door of the bakery and pushed in. Warm yellow light, the scent of gooey berry bread, and an almost painfully spotless azure tiled floor greeted me. The bakery was so different than in the days before the bombing. Peeta had put everything into it, making it a haven for himself. Making it _happy_.

And there he was behind the gleaming glass counter. My insides unclenched, and my day got a little less dreary when his aquamarine eyes darted to mine with a smile. He was speaking with a customer, but I could wait my turn.

She was a middle-aged woman, not very tall, with a sturdy body and clenched fists. They clenched and unclenched rhythmically around a paper bag, which I assumed enclosed bread. Her hair was short and choppy. Tan and gray. It was simply hair. She wore clothes of the same color scheme, simply clothes. I recognized her shirt, because I had worn the same one in District 13 years ago.

The woman turned around at my entrance. Gray Seam eyes, a sharp nose. Typical of the District. Something about this seemingly ordinary woman, however, exuded toughness. Her eyes were made of steel. She was a fighter, I knew it immediately. I could see scars, in her expression and on her ashy exposed skin. She had fought in the war, and she had lost a lot. Yet she stood tall and defiant, like a pillar of stone, or a wizened old God. Her presence demanded respect.

And so I reeled in shock when she gave _me_ the three-finger salute, and when I saw the admiration in her eyes.

_Admiration._

It had been a while. And it was coming from this sea turtle of a woman, wise beyond her years. It made me feel _good_.

She was saluting the long-buried Mockingjay, because apparently she still saw the bird somewhere inside of me. She remembered. And I remembered.

It was a wake-up call that I didn't even realize I needed.

* * *

As time passed, I saw more examples. I noticed more people noticing the Mockingjay as she shuffled through town, as she started venturing out more often.

One day it was a small bald man endowing me with a respectful dip of his shiny head.

Another day, it was band of children in the street bombarding me with questions about the war, enraptured by my every hushed word.

Warm meals started appearing on my doorstep in the months after Greasy Sae died.

An increasing number of people started coming to the bakery just to say good morning to me.

They still saw me as their leader, I realized. Not Paylor. Paylor just made the laws and she smiled for the cameras. She was happily tolerated in the place of their previous tyrant, but she didn't mean squat to the people. The simple folk still looked to the child with the bow and arrow to lead them.

Me. That would be me.

So I shouldered that responsibility once again, but it was not unhappily this time around. I was not required to make propaganda videos, or act whole when I was actually broken. All I had to do was continue living, and continue trying. I had to stop running from the bird that I had created, because she meant _hope_ for the people. And it wasn't my right to take that away from them.

More time passed, and I remembered _why_ I had become the Mockingjay, and why I could never just cut that part of myself away. I made a list of reasons, when I had those inevitable glass-is-half-empty kind of days. It helped.

I became the bird for children I didn't have yet.

I became the bird for a blonde boy in chains.

I became the bird for a sweet little sister that I was trying to save.

I became the bird for the people that were afraid.

And that last part was the kicker. I became the bird for the people. I was—I am—their hope, in a time when hope was scarce.

Slowly, I allowed myself to realize that I had done some good after all, and I let go of all the pointless guilt. The world salutes what I have done, so why don't I?

**A/N: Can you tell that I adore Peeta Mellark? GAWD I love him. **

**So... it has been three weeks since I updated! DANG. But I can explain… My slowness is due to a deadly mixture of laziness, homework, and writer's block. That is my excuse, take it or leave it. I have, however, made it a top priority to start updating more frequently. It's important to me, and I think I can do it. Let's hope so.**

**Please review and tell me what you think! Did this make any sense... ? Is Katniss in-character? Thanks guys! Peace**


	9. Attempted Reform

**I don't own Haymitch or Peeta.**

Attempted Reform

_(17 years later)_

Haymitch's POV

"Hae Misshgitt upp!"

… _What the hell?_

"Haemishh gettap!"

_Ugh. Head is melting. Who is gargling?_

"Haymitch! Get up!"

_Ahhhh… Unfortunately, that made sense._

Blurry, everything is blurry when I open my eyes. And it smells like awful things. My eyes register a figure swimming before me. I can't tell if it's doing jumping jacks or not... Maybe? It must be an angel come to take me away from this wretched place. Yes, finally. Goodbye, Peetniss. Goodbye Sonnet. Gonna miss you, really.

The longer I stare at it, however, the sharper the mirage becomes, and I slowly become certain that it is not an angel… I can make part of it out now. A yellow head. It's kind of tall.

Oh. It's the boy.

Well, I guess he's not really a boy anymore. I'm just an old man. Anyways.

"Haymitch, I've been looking for you! You look... awful. Get up. This is _not_ healthy".

_No duh, kid. _

Peeta extends a pale hand down towards me, which must mean that I'm on the ground. See, I can put two and two together. Slowly, my body regains feeling and my eyes begin to focus. I'm on my back… In soft stuff. Staring up at my grimy, peeling ceiling. Has that brownish stain always been there…? Huh. A deep intake of breath tells me that I'm most likely in my dirty laundry pile. I don't remember how I got here, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. I can taste liquor behind my teeth and under my tongue.

And hell, something smells _disgusting_.

The boy tries to grab my hand, but I swat it away instinctively.

"I can do it by myself" I snarl. Maybe I shouldn't be so rude… But my head is throbbing and I don't _want_ him here right now. I hoist myself off of the ground with some not-so-pretty noises and, after almost toppling over the other way, I get myself to stand up relatively straight. So far, so good.

Until I look around and see that I had been decomposing in a pile of underwear for Heaven knows how long. Dirty or clean, I don't know. Probably the former. _Nice_.

I also recognize that I'm in my bedroom on the top floor. Soiled clothes are strewn everywhere, along with a bunch of other things you would never guess belonged in a bedroom. Cupboard doors, chicken wire and dead weeds, to name a few. The dull wooden floor is all but disappeared from sight. I can't see most of the furniture, only an antique wooden dresser and a hideous green chair peeking out from under my laundry. I vaguely remember the silk seat being white, once…

Fluorescent white polka dots have begun to dance in front of my eyes. I try to catch them. I don't know why.

Peeta sighs. I hear him speaking, but my mind is stuck in a quagmire at the moment, and it takes me a long time to process his words. "Haymitch… You know this isn't good for you. You've been out for two days. Sonnet asked me if you were dead this morning. I came to check on you, and found you close to dead in your own filth. We keep Buttercup in better condition than this. I mean would it kill you to cut down on the drinking? You can't keep treating your body like this. It's not going to last much longer at this rate. Please… Haymitch you're not listening to me."

_Blah, blah, blah. Shut it, kid. You think I want to listen to this right now?_

I groan deliberately to show my extreme annoyance. Every so often, Peeta and Katniss will attempt to reform me. It never works, of course. They just don't realize how hard it is to kill 40-year-old habits that have encrusted themselves into you. My self-discipline is literally non-existent. Plus, they have each other. I have booze, and that's it. That's my escape.

"I'll see what I can do". Sarcasm. Dripping from my voice. The kid flinches.

"We need to find you a woman," he mumbles.

"Good luck finding a woman worthy of this prize" I retort. I jab a thumb towards my face. Did I just say that?

Peeta rolls his eyes at me. Sassy nut.

"I'm serious, Haymitch. Something has to change. We're… we're worried about you. Katniss is worried about you. Something is wrong when I come over to your house and find you passed out in your underwear. You have your geese. You have _us_. Why do you do this to yourself?"

I just glare at him. In my head, his words sound like they're playing in slow motion to a tacky Christmas melody.

He glares right back, but decides to be a little nicer. "Why don't you come over for dinner tonight? After you wash up. You need real food in your body. Plus, Sonnet is convinced that you're dead and she's worried". He lets out an exasperated breath. "You can't keep living like a drugged up pig".

_Oh shut up._ Does he realize that this is all I know? That it's all I can do sometimes? It's disgusting, but it's less painful than the alternative. Peeta is too self-righteous to let me get away with that excuse, however. The only way to get him off my case is to falsely appease him.

"Kid, I'll cut down…"

His expression tells me that it isn't enough.

I sigh. "I really will try, okay? I'll clean the house. I'll try not to get wasted like that again… I'll go outside more. Happy? Just stop bugging me about it. You know why I do it".

Lies. All of it.

And he knows it.

"Okay, Haymitch. Here's the deal, because I don't believe you. I hid your liquor somewhere in my house while you were passed out. You don't get it back until this house is clean. Completely spotless. Then, I will give you your alcohol in rations. You'll get a reasonable amount at the beginning of every week for you to drink sparingly until I give you your next ration. And you only get your rations when the house is tidy. I'm not trying to be your mother, but you obviously cannot take care of yourself. Yeah, you've improved, but it's still not good enough. This is the only way. And you wouldn't be able to find that liquor if you searched my house with a specially trained dog, so there's no way around this".

His face is dead serious. I bust up laughing.

"Are you joking me, kid?" I snort. He must be. It would be mildly funny, except that I'm honestly not in the mood for it… It has to be a lame joke. But his face doesn't change.

Crap.

My hysteria begins to rise.

"Okay, this isn't funny. Does Katniss know that you're doing this to me?"

He smiles, somewhat apologetically. "She suggested it, Haymitch".

_WHAT?_

Rage and betrayal. That's what I feel. I have no allies.

"LISTEN, KID," I roar as Peeta turns and strides out of the room. "You're not doing this to me. I do what I want, however often I want to. I am your _MENTOR_!" I fumble with the knife that I keep in the breast pocket of my saggy jacket. I have half a mind to throw this in that yellow head's direction. But I'll probably miss, because I'm not sure which of the three spinning Peetas is the real one. And I'll regret it later if I actually hit my target.

So I follow the kid, stumbling down the stairs two at a time. I think my intention is to beat him up. I dart through my soiled living room, nearly impaling myself on an overturned coffee table, trying to catch him. But I'm too slow. He's got the front door open.

"Haymitch, this is for your own good," he says seriously. Then he smiles sympathetically and steps out into the sunshine, slamming the door behind him.

I shriek like an angry beast.

If I weren't so wasted, I could have taken him down.

My mind then goes into a strange, animal-like state as I proceed to throw things maniacally around the room, imagining that every splintered piece of furniture is a blonde baker that likes to steal my alcohol. It helps a little, until I remember that this house has to be pristine in order to get my drinks back.

Later, after I have cooled off and taken a shower, I acknowledge the fact that my kids are trying to help me. And a part of me is grateful, but I try to ignore it.

**A/N: How's that for a fast update? Yeah that's what I thought.**

**So this is just some Haymitch humor for you. Is it inspirational? No. Does it have a point? Nope. Is it funny? Kind of. It's just a day in the life of Mr. Abernathy. The one good thing that came out of this is that now Haymitch will start living a somewhat healthier life. If Peeta's system lasts, that is. I have never had a hangover, nor will I _ever_, so this probably isn't that accurate. But whatever.**

**Don't know who Sonnet is? Read chapter 5. **

**Well, author's notes are pointless, but I really love including them. Thanks for reading… And just so you know, a review means a lot more to me than a Story Alert. Merry Christmas guys! And thanks to all the people who regularly review this! I. Love. You.**


	10. Mata Hari

**I don't own The Hunger Games, Peeta, or Katniss.**

Mata Hari

_(5.0 Years Later)_

Peeta's POV

The flame sputters and whispers, as if it were my old friend. And at that thought I snort internally. Fire. _Friend_. We hate each other. Bad experiences... Burning flesh... Rebellious birds...

Yet how many times have I painted a picture of those flames? Dancing, encased in their brick house? Dozens. I've tried to tame them with my paints. And they always look friendly and inviting on the canvas, but never as friendly as they do tonight.

It's her presence, I think. The beautiful, wild flame herself.

Or maybe it's because the flame serves a special purpose tonight: To toast bread.

We crouch before the hearth, Katniss and I, solemnly watching the flame lick two cheese buns on a stick. Of course we had to carry out the time-honored District toasting tradition, and of course we had to substitute plain bread with cheese buns. Her favorite.

She is absorbed in the fire, distracted, and I take a moment to look at her. Can't help it. She is aglow, more enthralling than the blaze. Her olive skin is soaking in the light from the flames. Her Seam eyes are merry, a tiny smile scrunches her nose. Silk—silk is all I can call it—falls vertically in its raven tresses down, down, down her back. Freckles dance on her high cheekbones. Soft brown. But they're only visible when you're close enough to kiss her.

When I look at her, the air in our living room takes on a dreamy consistency. It is light and fluffy and warm. Surreal. I could be wrapped in gaseous whipped cream. It feels like that. It feels happy. I've never been this content in my life. And is it even allowed? Is it? Am I allowed to feel like this forever? Because nothing will go wrong for the rest of my life. Never. She is working magic, making this room a haven, and hasn't she just vowed to spend the rest of her existence with me?

Yes.

So it will feel like this, every single evening. With her.

Of course, evenings already felt something like this. But now she's truly _mine_, and they're guaranteed.

And how fitting that tonight is the 5th anniversary of the rebels' victory. To me, that day is marked only as the day that she came out of danger forever. A small festival proceeds in town, the spruce music floating through the village and dancing its way through the window, a loud whisper, a beat I can feel. My fingers drum against the brick in unison with the tempo.

And she feels it too, of course. Her bare foot taps on the wood floor. She can't resist it. How can she? She is a native of our District… We turned to music long ago.

Our cheese buns are more than crispy and golden by now, and she gives me a worried, quizzical look when I accidentally burn one. My mind had been wandering. I delicately hand her the one with no charred spots. We eat them. She relishes hers, her eyes smiling knowingly at me from over the top of the bubbling cheddar. I must look as happy as she does. I feel _warm_, and it's not from the scalding bread.

And the music wafting in is so _lively_. Just the right volume, a spry and chipper tune, and I can tell that Katniss is trying to contain her body from dancing. Jittery fingers, hair gently swaying.

Why contain it, though?

It's a happy night.

So I wait for her to finish her cheese bun, and I take her in my arms. We twirl through the house, to the beat, making up the dance as we go. It's only us two souls in the huge house, but it is anything but lonely.

She folds her small, rough hands around my neck, coiling my curls shyly around a finger.

We spin. Her cropped white dress grazes my knees.

She giggles when my leg causes me to stumble into the wall.

And she leans in, touching her chapped lips to mine, brushing sweetly. Oh, I could easily paint a beautiful picture on her face with my lips...

She dips.

Her tiny feet, calloused, grainy, press into mine whenever she fumbles.

We spin some more, because we can keep closer that way.

And I'm hooked on her eyes. Silver and beaming, they never end, they hold answers that I _want_. She holds her gaze. She's got me pinned.

I'm grinning like an idiot.

I twirl her.

Her pixie laugh brings the blood crashing to my heart.

_Oh, keep me here forever._

And somewhere in between her kisses, I can't help but wondering: Am I healed, finally? Is she? Our wounds are closed, no longer boiling, no longer oozing. I think we are scarred, and that is all.

All I know is that I'm too happy to still be broken in any way.

**A/N: Some classic, slightly corny Peeta/Katniss fluff for you all. Really original, I know, but what would a Mockingjay epilogue be without it? Peeta's POV was hard to write from… I haven't dared to try it until now. **

**And FYI, a Mata Hari is a temptress of sorts. I just liked the word, even though it sounds like a type of fish. And it kinda fits, doesn't it?**

**So I would greatly appreciate an honest opinion on this… Some criticism would be lovely. But praise gives me warm fuzzies, as well. Thank you!**

**And all my reviewers… Dah! You are incredible! Special **_**special**_** thank you to those who review regularly… You know who you are. Make my day, you do.**

**And this was a failed attempt at a quick update. But I'm trying… **


	11. Tyne

**I do not own the Hunger Games Trilogy.**

Tyne

_(9 years later)_

Gale's POV:

Tyne Eumekia: Where to begin?

She's different. Maybe that is what sparked my initial attraction to her: her oddity. It also had something to do with her strong looks, I think. She's breathtaking, of course, but people in general find her beauty unsettling. It's her tapered almond eyes, her pointed ears, her impish grin. She just doesn't look like most women. She looks more like a dark angel. It sets most people on edge. Yet at the same time, they can't look away for too long.

She intimidates people. They see something in her that they don't have: An identity. Even in this messed up world, where survival is at the top of everyone's priority list and most people can't think about their ego, somehow Tyne has created herself an identity. She was born with one, I suppose.

And she is exactly my chemical formula. Just stubborn enough to maintain my eternal respect, and just sweet enough to induce my doting affection.

Meeting her in the first place was purely coincidence—beautiful coincidence-, but almost immediately, I felt an attraction to her that I couldn't explain, and it didn't make sense, because I had pointedly given up on women for the time being. It wasn't conscious. It wasn't intentional. I'd never seen the woman in my life, yet she was so familiar to me. I felt like I could easily love her. How was it possible? I'm still not sure. Sometimes we meet people that ignite something inside of us, and for some unexplained reason we want to _know_ them. It happens.

And I wanted to know Tyne. Maybe my soul knew that she had something I needed. Maybe some God was giving me a little nudge in right direction. Her presence… It was commanding, confident, but I felt comfortable in it. More: I was drawn to it. And the attraction was apparently mutual- a fortunate twist of fate -so we got talking. I remember every single word that she said. All of her facial expressions. She talked with _purpose_ and underlying passion. There was a peculiar smile in her voice, not quite a laugh. It made my heart do funny, funny things.

So when she asked me if I would like to take her to dinner, every part of my brain said yes. Naturally. I didn't even consider the fact that we barely knew each other, or that I rarely went out. It was an instinctive answer. Somehow, she had torn all my walls down in an instant.

* * *

Before I met Tyne, in the nine years since the fighting, I had been in love exactly twice. Fiascos, both affairs. Love was what I had called it at the time. But it lasted too quickly, we got bored of each other too soon, for it to be called love.

Then I thought that maybe I had been in love only once. Before the war, with a girl that I couldn't have. Was it love, what I had with that girl?

I still don't know what the hell it was, but it ended terribly. It ended in need of heavy repair. And when we put it back together, it turned out to be a shaky friendship. That's all.

But I do know that the feelings I had for Katniss, once upon a time, are the same ones that I have for Tyne. Only those two have ever sparked any sentiments that felt substantial.

And I wasn't necessarily looking for another love ordeal, when I said yes to Tyne. She was intriguing, and I needed the comfort that she placed on me. I needed a friend, in any form. I don't know what I thought I was doing, but I didn't expect what came.

I didn't expect to legitimately fall in love.

* * *

The first time we kissed, she kissed me. It was 26 days after we met. By that time, I was able to label the tipsy sensation that I was constantly feeling as love. And It felt pretty damn real.

Yeah, I knew what I was into. And hell, I would have kissed her a million times before that point, but I felt like I was violating ancient burial grounds in doing so. What if that wasn't what she wanted? I just waited for her to indicate her feelings. She was hard to read-So freaking hard. I didn't know what she wanted. So I proceeded with painstaking caution in everything that I did. Chasing her away was by biggest fear.

When she kissed me, though, it was impatiently. She was annoyed that she had to kiss me first.

So after that, I made it a point to always kiss _her_ first. Quite frequently, too, for good measure.

And she tastes like sassafras, in case you were wondering.

* * *

I started taking her into the woods with me. I figured that she needed to be introduced to my habitat. I taught her how to hunt with a bow-and-arrow, so we would have something to do together. And my days weren't lonely anymore. For the first time in nine years, I had a hunting partner.

I knew she would be a good shot before we even started, but of course her deadly accuracy still amazes me. She's as silent as the shadows, and quicker than me on foot. And the more time that I spend with her, the more I realize that she parallels another girl, in a district far away, in almost everything that she does.

Yet she is so different from the other girl. She rarely infuriates me, because we're different enough. She looks out for other people first. She's not a doer. She's a thinker. She didn't make me wait for an answer. She's relatively friendly.

She just likes to be with me. I like to be with her.

And it feels perfect.

Of course, the other girl still lingers somewhere in my heart, but she's in a different quadrant entirely.

I know Tyne's history, too, and it's no less tragic than mine, or Katniss's, or anyone else that fought in the war. But she learned how to be happy despite it all. And she's teaching me how. Maybe that's why I need her so badly.

Actually, it's so much more than that. It's hard to describe, but she's my dark angel.

* * *

**A/N: That was a semi-speedy update, maybe? Okay, maybe not. Sorry.**

**So this was a vague chapter on purpose... I didn't want to harass you with too many details. I might do something with Tyne and Gale later. Tyle, if you will.**

**And if you review: What is your favorite chapter so far? Which one is your least favorite?**

**THANKS FOR ALL THE REVIEWS! **

**PS: Confucius says... Take my poll. I'm dying to know what you'll all say.**


	12. Mirage

**I don't own the Hunger Games, or Haymitch.**

Mirage

_(4 years later)_

Haymitch's POV:

You have been trying to forget about her for thirty years, except that recently you are realizing the irony behind that resolution.

So you have everything-kids, a house, mountains of food, a stable life, a successful rebellion under your belt-but still—_still_—you're throwing it all away for the siren song of a bubbling drink, because you want to forget. Everything. Everyone. You want to forget _her _especially. You want to forget why the hell there is a reason to forget in the first place.

And does it help?

NOPE. Not for long. She still pops up. In the last few dregs at the bottom of the mug; peering through the duct-taped window on the second floor. You scream apologies but she can't hear them. And her face doesn't look so beautiful when it's gnarled in accusation, when her eyes reflect on a smoldering death. It's damn scary. That's why you keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking—until 25 years goes by, and you realize that your life has become about as functional as your liver. You're useless and it's your fault. And you _still_ remember every painful detail and she _still_ lurks in your coat closet. You've lost whatever game you were trying to play with yourself.

So eventually you've given up. On everything. You've succumbed to the fear. It's not what you ever wanted. It's exactly what you've been trying to prevent, in fact, but somehow you haven't been very good at it. You spend your days with a sticky bottle and a nasty, self-induced headache. You wind up talking to the geese in your backyard, spilling secrets and regrets about that long-dead sweetheart, and kind-heartedly trying to share your booze. And you try to ignore your bitterness towards the blossoming love going on next door, because you never had love like theirs. Safe love. You didn't let yourself have it, after her.

You try to make the pestering feeling of worthlessness go away by chucking rocks at the nearest goose. But you're secretly glad that you miss, because they have been politely listening to the forgotten secrets that you have been longing to tell _someone_.

Soon you're shuffling sheepishly out to your backyard every day, to talk to the only creatures that you think want to listen. And to escape the specter that lives inside that house. Even though it hurts, you find yourself explaining her personality and her quirks, and other small factoids about that young lady. That sweet heart. You give them a lengthy description of her face, and you re-enact all the times that she slapped you. And the times that she kissed you. Everything you can remember.

You feel stupid at first, but you begin to recognize that with each passing day you are becoming lighter, and that _something_ within you is being purged. It's a therapy of sorts, and as long as it's kept a secret from Peeta and Katniss, you think you'll continue the sessions.

And one day, for the first time in 29 years, you say her name. Why was it so hard? It sounds strange on your blistered tongue. You cry. Mostly because you know that you're finally letting her go. Not forgetting. _Releasing_. Letting go.

They are tears of joy that you're shedding.

And although this revelation doesn't prevent you from continuing to pour the vile alcohol down your gullet every night, perspectives start to alter. She doesn't guest star in your nightmares quite as often as she used to, and when she does, she's the clever Seam girl that you knew once upon a time, and she doesn't hold anything against you. You greet her mirage with open arms. And you're sad when the sunlight arrives, and she has to leave.

But then her visits become fewer and farther between. She never stays long. She's slipping and you know it.

Your pleading calls can't bring her back, but you never expected them to. All you can do is lament on the night that she whispers a goodbye.

Because she's free now. And you're not.

**A/N: Thank you all a million times for reviewing! I appreciate it so much!**

**And are you guys growing sick of Haymitch? I wasn't planning on another chapter dedicated to his ranting, but this piece literally flowed out of my brain the other day, and I just let the floodgates stay open. 'Tis about his lover. The finished product turned out... Oddly. Decided to post it, but he'll probably be out-of-action for a while. Because even _I'm_ weary of him.**

**Chow!**


	13. Calculations

**I do not own the Hunger Games, or brainy Mr. Beetee.**

Calculations

_(3.14159265 years later)_

Beetee's POV:

According to their calculations, in order to be content, one must have exactly one house, one spouse, one job, and three children. All tallied together, these components should have the equivalent value of one unbroken, completely whole family. That is having happiness, they say.

But who exactly dictates this postulate? Who may say what happiness is for the entire race? Nobody in particular. The equation is merely popular sentiment. The truth of the matter is that very few people have all of the "key" aspects in their lives. There are many that do not possess even one of them. The happiness in this country is comparable to the wealth: poorly diffused. Not that money and wealth have a directly proportional relationship, but such is fact. These are hard times that squeeze the animation and bone marrow out of an individual. One has not time to hunt down the picture-perfect lifestyle. I myself have yet to meet a citizen of Panem with all five ingredients to the recipe.

As for me, I have but one of the ingredients: A house. That is all. But who says that I am baking the same species of corn bread as everyone else? I have, in fact, all 7 ingredients to an altogether different sort of cake batter. I have a crammed workshop with every odd and every end that one could imagine, an endearingly bothersome nephew under my care, a pantry stocked with wheat crackers, a favorite pair of tweed trousers, a library of instruction manuals, fond memories of two deceased wives, and an optimistic romance with a saucy chemist. For Beetee Waiger, this is happiness. It is my ideal concoction, though it may not appear to be much.

My lifestyle looks something like this: I project myself out of bed at the vertex of every sunrise. I stretch, I groom, I read the morning paper. I whip up a nutritionally balanced breakfast to successfully initiate my day, as well as my nephew Capper's. It is usually of carrots, wheat crackers, and fresh milk. A breakfast of champions, certainly. Us two men then proceed to spend the next 10 hours in the workshop, tinkering to our hearts' content. He is much like myself in that he enjoys springs and cogs and whirs, and he lives only to discover. He is unlike me in the fact that he cannot cease chatter for even a nanosecond. I am a man of few words. He is a man of infinite. It is inspiring at best, teeth-grindingly irksome at worst.

Our comely neighbor, Miss Mega, dines with us nigh every evening. As bachelors, Capper and I cannot cook to save our hides, therefore Miss Mega provides the food. She is a wiry blonde thing, with a sharp tongue and a satisfactory sense of humor. As she is a chemist (_ahem_), our dinner table conversations are guaranteed to be intellectually stimulating. Capper often gets lost. Never one for atoms and molecules myself, even I cannot always keep up with her passionate rant about dipoles and dispersion forces. Nonetheless, there is a thrillingly detectible mutual attraction between the two of us. Like that between Potassium and Chlorine, if you will. She is certainly a looker, and she's got enough barometers strapped to the side of her house to earn my eternal respect.

Miss Mega and Capper are the only family that I have. Truthfully, they are all that I require. We live a peacefully stagnant life; an old inventor honestly couldn't ask for more. We are quite whole, bent but not broken, although there are times when Capper chokes on his words, and memories-warped daydreams-of his late parents render him speechless. It can't be easy on him that I strongly resemble the death mask of his father. It can't be easy when he finds old explosive designs in stray manila envelopes. It can't be easy living a handful of yards from the square in which your friends and family were slaughtered. One by one by one.

Of course, it isn't easy for anyone. Not me, nor Mega, who can be found weeping in her vegetable garden on particularly gloomy Sundays. _Easy_ was never a variable in the formula.

The rebellion, the Games, the fear, the children… It haunts me as much as it would any hormonal teenager. But you see, there is the big difference between us: Hormones. I am not a bundle of nerves. I am proficient at hiding the pain and distress, folding it up and tucking it neatly away into a drawer in the bowels of my brain. The label on the drawer clearly reads _'DO NOT OPEN'_. Therefore, it is never opened. Simple. Wife #1 always used to tell me that I had a heart of Neon: non-reactive. Unaffected. She complained that I had a problem with never addressing my emotions full in the face. Of course she would be correct, but wouldn't you rather hear about my accomplishments than my many woes? I would.

My current happiness is curiously constructed. In many ways I am simply surviving, chugging headlong through each day, looking forward and wondering if the next will be any better. But there is something divine in the simple, meandering life. I may not do much except tamper and snack until the day is spent, but it is not a bad way of life for a wearied out old man.

I am definitely happy. Being a complicatedly simple man, it doesn't take much to make me so.

* * *

**A/N: This is me summoning all of my knowledge to try and sound intelligent like Beetee. Yep. Who doesn't love a nerd?**

**Well, please tell me what you think of this number. Thank you SO much, all of you! I've gotten the nicest comments!**


	14. Snapshot

**The Hunger Games trilogy most definitely does not belong to me.**

Snapshot

_(10 years later)_

A photograph lies face up on a grainy kitchen counter, almost lost to the eye among a clutter of worksheets, cereal boxes and expensive porcelain breakfast plates. Round fingerprints smudge the glossy surface. They are relatively small, and by the looks of the careless pattern, hopelessly clumsy. It has been recently examined.

But by whom?

_A child_, most would immediately answer. The greedy fingers mark haven't handled the item with care. Its position in the calamity on the counter suggests that it was flung down in a hurry, or abandoned. Why? Was the child forbidden to look at it? And were they caught? Where did it come from?

It's the only one on the table.

The snapshot itself gleams with the face of a young woman, cradling what can only be her baby boy in fragile and speckled arms. The infant could be no more than three days in the world, so pink and gelatin and confused does it look. Neither smile; they both stare. The mother sits in a well-worn wicker seat, on a balcony fronting a vast and blank sea. Her hair curls up and flutters about the doll-like face. She is exhausted, but clearly pretty. She is one of those lovely souls that has been caught in the undertow one too many times, but manages to come back up choking and alive, again and again. Tarnished gold, as it were.

She clutches the child with what are probably her only tendrils of strength. The sunny day makes painfully visible the sleepless eyes and the tense wrists.

All of this, frozen in a still frame.

Any inconspicuous viewer would be inclined to wonder where the baby's father is, for every child _must_ have a biological father. The photo is unbalanced without the shape of a handsome young man to compliment the mother and child. Baby, mommy, daddy. Isn't that how it should look? Maybe he's snapping the photo; maybe he's not. Is that why the lonely mother appears to be crying? Oh, it's just a glimmer in the corners of the eyes really, but it's there. There is obviously a melancholy spirit sighing beneath the sun-kissed skin.

Is her lover dead and gone? Who exactly _was_ her lover? Bits and pieces are known. The odd story will pop up when the woman is in a bright enough mood to tell it, but the full tale is sadly wanting. Who was the man that the baby would call 'Dad'?

Absent.

The child (the owner of the conspicuous fingerprints) must have been wondering about the absent man. He knows that the father had been brave and good. The few pictures that he's seen are treasures, portraits of an awesome hero (one that admittedly looks a little bit like himself). A man in fisherman garb, somehow sporting the khakis and windbreakers more naturally than everyone else. A grinning, prince-like man with long laughing hair and friendly hands.

The child wishes he could have known him.

Because the fingerprints on the hastily abandoned photo belong to Rollin Odair, a boy who couldn't help but pry into his mother's secret photo drawer. He feels justified in looking at his own baby pictures, though. Why the pictures are secret papers of taboo, the boy can't say. Perhaps the photos and their faces are a danger to his mother's very stability, and that's why they're hidden away. Everybody knows that a photo is a memory, and his mother does not have many happy ones of _those_.

But why would she even want _all_ those photographs, if they were so dangerous?

It's only one of the many things that _he doesn't know._

Rollin also wonders about who took the pictures. Because he can count the friends that his mother has using his left hand (minus a few fingers, even). He wouldn't bring it up, though, because he is afraid to ask his mother about most things. They have to be equally strong for each other, you see. Safe subjects are few and far between in their household. He can't be held responsible for one of her breakdowns, triggered by an unthoughtful question with an unexpectedly agonizing answer.

He'll probably never ask about the blurry spots either—They show up in the majority of her forbidden pictures. Even the photo on the counter, with the motionless faces gazing up at the ceiling, has a suspicious hazy patch. They always hover somewhere to the left of his mother's head. Barely perceptible, unless you've looked at a million of them and have begun to recognize a pattern.

There are pictures of her on the beach, sitting Indian style in the coarse sand. Pictures of her in the kitchen. On the balcony. Reading a book in a messy bedroom. Cradling a very pregnant stomach. Working in her greenhouse, smiling at no one in particular. They're all lovely photos; they all have the defect. A blur that shouldn't be there. And the pictures are tucked safely away in a wooden box under her bed, so the secret goes unrevealed, growing more and more dormant each day.

Rollin, being a child, and of course believing in every siren story and mermaid myth that meets his ear, likes to think that the blurry spot is a being. He likes to think that it has something to do with the people that his mother talks to in her room, long after dark. People that nobody can see nor hear(except his mother), but people that exist all the same. Are they friendly? Are they ghosts? Pixies? Is it his lost father? That's where Rollin's questions stop short, however—Sometimes questions become a little too painful and dangerous.

So they must be abandoned to collect dust, much like a photograph in a forgotten chest. Or like a child with a half-in-half-out kind of mother.

But there we must leave the photo of the woman, her baby, the ocean, the freckles and that damned blurry patch of uncertainty. The questions and the analysis stop abruptly. Because in through the front door of the large house walks a child—we know the one—followed closely by a frazzled woman—Her, we know as well. The mother doesn't notice when her son snatches the photo out of the mess on the kitchen counter, and stuffs it into his pocket; she's altogether too absorbed in an abstract thought to notice anything unusual in the sweet brunette's manner when he excuses himself to his room; she fails to hear the hurried pace of little boots tramping down the hall, the eager shutting of a bedroom door.

Whatever world she is in at the moment does not include her little boy.

The _boy_ notices, however, after he's stashed the photo in a drawer for later inspection, his mother's small voice drifting in from the kitchen; she's speaking in earnest to somebody that apparently isn't speaking back.

He sighs.

**A/N: I'm fascinated with ghosts, in case you haven't picked up on that by now.**

**How can I say thank you enough to all my regular readers? Your feedback is so valuable; you have little idea. When this little shindig is over, I will name you all off individually. But, until then… SHANK YOU ALL!**

**And anonymous reviewers—If you had an account that I could reply to on a more personal level, I would! Thank you for your comments as well!**


	15. Mania

**Suzanne Collins dreamt up Peeta and Katniss and their story.**

Mania

_(3 years later)_

Peeta's POV

That _woman_.

I want to say several things about her.

I refrain from unleashing the volley of profanities, however, until I'm locked securely in my painting studio—but just barely. Then they escape like bats out of hell, the words do—black, angry, and in rapid succession.

I let them hang in the air for a few moments. I can almost see them, and they're ugly.

How does she do this to me? I've gone into an animalistic state devoid of empathy and self-control. I'd love to blame the tracker jacker poison, but I can't—It's just a bad day. A cloudy mood. It's just _me_. Call it side-effects of a traumatizing war experience, but I'm _choosing_ to see red.

I pound a powerful fist unapologetically into a recently finished masterpiece—crimson, mustard and orange faces, shredded beneath my hand-, and sink into the only chair in the room, utterly exhausted and defused. Ripping canvas didn't make me feel better. I feel wrong wrong _wrong_.

Our fights-they are few and far between, but they do happen-and for what? What are they good for? Soiling feelings and straining love. It's a destructive process. She takes the words out of my mouth and throws them out the nearest window. She _does not_ let me get a phrase in. She looks at me with eyes so filled with hurt, and doesn't understand that I'm trying to help. _That I just want to make the hurt go away_. She keeps yelling and breaking things, spitting and hurling things, until her little arms give out and she's nothing but a wet and noisy wreck on the floor.

I'm worse than powerless against that; I'm seemingly the attacker.

And I'm not allowed to touch her. Oh, no. Otherwise I'm rewarded with a slap or a very angry, very swollen eye. An accusing eye. And that hurts the _worst_; it's not the welts on my head from sailing vases.

And I'm so tired afterwards. Of it _all_. I blame her, and I blame myself; I blame a dead president; I blame a little girl that should have been more careful. Of course it's wrong, but the guilt has to be stuffed somewhere because nobody wants it. Not me. I don't want it.

In the end, it's nobody's fault and everybody's fault at the same time. And who do you blame, when that's the case?

This quarrel—the one we had today—was bad. I can't remember exactly how it started, but her flame had already been highly explosive even before the words started stinging. It was one of _those days_ already.

Words like _marriage_ and _family_ were somewhere in the wild mix, but that's all I remember. Does it even matter? Words like those scare her—I know that. I _knew_ that. But I had to test the bear trap. I was yelling and she was yelling—Our voices soon became nothing but a frightening din. When it was clear that nobody could win, I just left before she melted down. I came to the only room in our house that was purely mine: My studio.

Hesitantly thinking back, I could have fixed things in so many ways. I could have—should have—gathered her in my arms before the missiles were launched and prevented the whole—damn—thing.

But it didn't happen that way.

I look down at my arms now and snarl. _Snarl._ I hate them. Swirled with different colors of skin and paint, spattered with light freckles, strong and thick. They're ugly, because they can't protect Katniss. Because they look so strong when they're really so weak.

They still belong to her, though, if she still wants them tonight.

And then I'm in a frenzy again, pacing up and down my cage lined with painted nightmares and dreams.

_Katniss, I'm sorry._

As a cold nest forms in my stomach, I take up a paintbrush; it's the best weapon that I've got, and it hasn't failed me yet. I can paint the molten sun in mid-winter; I can paint feelings of serenity when I need it myself in reality. Years ago, it helped me paint myself to near sanity when nothing else was certain. It is my second best friend in the world.

And so then the spattering of colors begins in a desperate attempt to cool off and forget. Faces slowly appear on the canvas; I'm not yet sure what I'm making. My mind wanders and my hand takes over. Shapes bend and break, flames rise up, clouds crash down, and sullen eyes blink and blink and blink. I'm in a mania, but what else is to be expected?

Hours—minutes—days go by.

Seemingly.

And then suddenly it becomes clears that it's a portrait of her. _Of course_. But did I expect anything else? I knew who the subject would be before I even made the first stroke. It's an unintentional but blatant and naked confession—right there on canvas—of a love that I could never control. Our fight—it now seems irrelevant. Because all the anger and frustration has moved someplace else. It's in front of me, on the easel, in heavy and confused strokes.

A battered and bruised Katniss stands in the picture, with smoking hair and wobbling limbs. She's been backed into a corner by a hideous beast that you cannot see-me?-, but whose shadow smothers the quaking girl. Except, her expression isn't fearful at all—It blazes. It teases. _Bring it on_, she's saying.

I let out a pent-up chuckle. That _woman_.

And that's when I leave the room—I leave the painting of Katniss as it stands—and make for the kitchen feeling level and cool. Because I'm the Peacemaker in this household; I make the cheese buns that fix everything when I mess up. I do it all for _her_.

**A/N: Ahh. ****Because they do have fights; Because Peeta isn't perfect; Because the Boy with the Bread ultimately makes everything better... (Because I'm a sap).**

**Thank you everyone for the feedback! I know I'm slow. You're all champs for putting up with it.**

**MD**

PS: Stupid double hyphens get deleted when I save the document on this website, for some reason-CURSES.


	16. Time Bomb

**Suzanne Collins own ALL except my word orientation. **

Time Bomb

_(12 years later)_

Katniss's/Haymitch's POV

It's a warm blue night and I'm almost feeling good enough to enjoy the stars. Leaving the front door swinging, I make my way across Victor's Village towards Haymitch's house, where I see his dirty boots kicked up onto the porch railing. I silently step onto the veranda and take a seat next to him.

We sit in peaceful silence for several minutes. He does little to acknowledge my presence, but I don't feel unwelcome; I simply wait. We listen to crickets creaking and Haymitch chugging. I pick at something sticky on my seat. When he emits a bone-rattling belch, I scrunch my nose and briefly think that Haymitch would be a terrible father.

Children—The thought suddenly makes me uneasy, it nags, and I return to plucking dead bugs absently from my armrest.

I wait some more.

And it's ten minutes later that, as he's pulling out the last sip from his booze bottle and reaching for another, he speaks.

"And what might you need, sweetheart?" His voice is as gruff as always; he may or may not be drunk. His words are slurring and slushy and something inside of me is disturbed by the blatant destruction that he is inflicting upon himself.

But I just sigh lightly. He sips. "Nothing from you, really. Peeta locked himself up, and has been painting for hours. I think he had a nightmare that he doesn't want to talk about…" I trail off as I recall the bite I'd seen in his eyes. "Thought I'd come by and make certain that you were still…you know, alive".

It's partially true.

"Worried about me?" He snorts.

"Shut up, Haymitch. I really don't mind leaving you to rot".

He smiles sloppily, reveling in what he perceives as a compliment. "So why don't we talk, eh? Got any friendly gossip for an old recluse like myself?"

Hardly registering the sarcastic undertone, I almost spit out the words—I've been preparing them carefully in my head—but my tongue is stuck and I find that I've got stage fright for an annoyingly elusive reason. So I say something else.

"Friendly? Gossip these days is never friendly. But as for plain old gossip, I haven't got much. Nothing… nothing happens anymore". My tone is slow. I consider bailing out of the conversation—speed walking home right now—without breaking the news.

There's a gurgling cackle from Haymitch. "Lover-boy not satisfying you, eh? Your handsome cousin probably could have kept you entertained—He's the less boring of the two".

I choke.

_What?_

It's all furious instinct from there. Cheeks steaming, eyes probably painted with my embarrassment and rage, I snatch the bottle in question—half full—out of his withering grip. As it sails across his front yard, he watches it sadly.

We both flinch when it breaks on the sidewalk.

Then I'm yelling. "_Haymitch_, you're a damned _idiot_! I cannot believe you _said_ that—Son of a—and I had something—I had something I was going to say—I just—but now I—I—"

That goofy grin on his face makes everything worse and I'm _so_ alarmingly close to tears. _He's so drunk, _I think. _And this is so useless_. But then his gaze darts down to my stomach, where now I realize my hand was resting protectively, and the smile disappears.

He's thinking hard, and it's almost as if the dopiness evaporates from his demeanor for a moment. A sudden realization literally sobers him up.

_Please don't say it. Please don't say it._

"You're pregnant, aren't you sweetheart?" His voice is too small.

I'm resenting his probing eyes, and the fact that he guessed what I didn't have the courage to tell him right out. I snatch the hand away from my belly, but of course it's too late. He's just staring at me, dumfounded.

He looks as scared as I feel. I'm surprised that he's not making a joke of my mood swings.

"Peeta—Peeta wanted it" I choke out dryly. "I suppose I do, too, it's just that… I'm scared, Haymitch. You… You know?"

_Why did I even come here tonight?_

But he only nods. His expression is unreadable and I hate it. I think I know what he's thinking, and I hate it. I stand up to leave, but he snatches my wrist. He holds strong.

"How long?" he asks earnestly. He looks older than I've ever seen him. _Because he cares._

"It hasn't even been two months".

"And you? Are you sick?"

"With worry".

He just looks at me.

I look back, still as a statue, and I don't dare touch my stomach. I don't want to express the fear and uncertainty because we both know it's there and there's no point.

"I just thought that you should know," I say as I turn once again to go.

I'm on the stairs when he clears his throat and calls "It'll be alright, Katniss". I turn around and I'm surprised to see a tired man with only worry shadowing his corroded features.

I don't say anything, but some tension is gone as I make my way home.

I'm careful to avoid the broken bottle on the pavement.

!X!

Haymitch's POV:

Who would expect new life to reawaken such old fears?

As I watch Katniss walk away into the night, I wonder for the million-and-third time what it would be like to have a family. '_Probably shitty'_ is the answer that I've learned to use over the years. But as she steps, I see another woman stepping in her place (my girl), and I imagine a child in _her_ belly. And I can't stifle the longing. I know it's a hallucination and it can't ever be a reality, but I still wonder what it would be like. I still wonder and grieve.

**A/N: So I went on an unannounced hiatus—I was very busy, and I thought it was time to dispatch some of my responsibilities for a while, including my Fanfiction account. I profusely apologize! I'll give a warning next time!**

**Also, I want to give a MILLION thanks to all my reviewers! I know that this story is far from perfect (the first chapters are actually embarrassing for me to re-read) but all of the comments have helped me grow as a writer and have given me encouragement. This has turned into something that I love to do! Virtual bear hugs to ALL!**

**So: Thoughts on the casting of Peeta, Gale and Katniss? Are you all as pissed as I am?**


	17. Red Flower, Yellow Flower

Red Flower, Yellow Flower

_(1 year later)_

Katniss's POV

The nightmare is bad. The nightmare is really, really bad. But waking up to a half-naked Finnick Odair perched on my windowsill is even worse. Yellow morning light streams across his features and kisses his dimples, lights up his hair. His muscles are outlined in sharp relief. He is very handsome—very, very handsome. But it's his expression alone that squeezes my heart (in a bad way). He looks at me, as calm as if he'd never had a care in the world, and I briefly think that his gaze is too steady for a dead guy.

But I don't say anything. There's too much to say.

My eyes close—I know it is a mistake—and when I open them again of course he is gone. It wasn't unexpected, but I begin to cry. Softly, because I can't stand loud noises. And the sobs lull me into a dead sleep once again.

Then I wake up, minutes—hours?—later and it's a sickening task to wrench my body out of bed. I feel like I've been decaying there—in a coffin—for centuries.

My sours eyes note the deceitful Mr. Sunshine outside of my window and something inside of me hopes for an apocalypse—So I can go back into my coffin.

**~X~**

I'm making my way downstairs, stair by stair. Each step hurts, from my legs to my heart and back again. I don't even jump when Prim emerges from the kitchen to tell me that breakfast is ready. It is when I remember that she'll disappear like Finnick did that the cry revs up from my throat again. It's soft and scratchy. I blink, and the hallway is empty.

I know who is coming next and the fear in my stomach is cold. Cinna materializes below, hanging an auburn coat by the door. The craftsmanship is amazing, and the color so pretty on the silken fabric. It almost looks like dried blood…

I blink him away quickly.

I am pushing down the stairs two at a time now. This house is uncomfortably full with people that don't exist anymore, people I don't want to see. I feel it constricting in on me. It's a cave. Water drips in. There is blood on the floor. And knives. And tainted soup. But if I can just get to the door… My fellow tribute is just outside the entrance. A blonde boy sitting by the stream. And if I can just get to him… If I can just get to him…

I throw the door open and I don't see a stream—I'm in a Village. I don't see the boy but I see dandelions, growing like weeds in the green grass. Should they be calming? Because they're not enough. I run frantically towards a house across the green, in which I know I will find the boy.

I'm running so fast, but he meets me halfway—Was he scared too? Did he hear me crying?—And we embrace. It's warm. Except it's also frantic and I'm clutching him too hard. He's trying to make the hug gentle, but I don't think he understands that I can't calm down because of what lies inside my _house_—

_Oh but he does._

And I collapse into his arms with that. Limp. In painful flashes, I'm remembering and regretting all the times that I overlooked his problems and his virtues. All the times I hated him for trying to protect me, all the times I condemned him as weak, all the times I tried to classify him with everyone else.

Because he's not _everyone else_. He came back. He survived the Games—my own sick Games—and nobody else forgave me enough to come back.

So I kiss him while the fear floats out of my body, and I smile at the feeling of dandelions under my feet. For a moment I forget about the house behind me, and we go together—the boy and I—into a peaceful place where we wear yellow flower garlands around our necks and acquire wrinkles around our eyes from smiling so much. It's temporary, but I find it much better than an apocalypse.

**A/N: Eeck. Day-mares. This is to show that Katniss's world has both extremely dark and extremely bright spectrums. Also, this is not such a traditional piece. It's more of a "Dump-my-random-thoughts-in-this-Word-document" kind of piece. Not to be taken too seriously. I'm out of practice.**

**Thank you for the opinions on the upcoming movie cast—Much appreciated and very interesting. And thank you for reading!**


	18. Promises

**Suzanne Collins "owns" Katniss, Peeta and their daughter**

Promises

_(16 years later)_

Katniss's POV

Her third birthday is celebrated with a lavishly frosted cake and a picnic deep in the woods, on the edge of the little lake that taught me how to swim. We're grateful for the fact that Sonnet was born in June; it is a warm night and the sun does not sink until good and late.

I sit cross-legged in Peeta's lap, and we silently watch our daughter play. Our pretty little creation. She scampers about with fistfuls of cake and wildflowers, blue pocketfuls of cookies and dirt. Her pretty black hair hangs in two tangled braids down, down, down her back, and her little reflection dances on the ripples in the lake—dances and spits and crackles. Did my little reflection once look like that, in this very spot, on those very ripples? It's with a dull pain that I begin to realize just how quickly her childhood years are trickling away, just how little control I have over it all.

My heart constricts ever so slightly.

Maybe Peeta notices some tension in my shoulders, or maybe, after all these years, we have a special connection, a chord attached to both of us that sends feelings both ways. As if in response to my thoughts, he starts kneading my sunburnt shoulders, making his way down my arms and finally to my little hands, clasping them both in his own. "Don't worry about anything right now, Katniss" he whispers into my ear. Soothing. "It's a beautiful evening".

I shiver at the pleasant way that his breath kisses my ear. There is truth and good intentions in what he says—his words could always win me over. I snuggle just a little further into his chest and continue watching our daughter, trying to let it all go but becoming slightly distracted by the way that Peeta's lips are brushing through my hair.

Slightly distracted, but happy. Very happy.

[XXX]

Before Sonnet was born, we made a lot of promises to ourselves—all for her—and we penned them in ink so we wouldn't forget. Peeta drafted the list in his neatest handwriting and it hangs on the wall of our bedroom, surrounded by sketches, love notes and other oddities. There must be fifty promises on that sheet of paper. Only fifty of the million things we wanted for our baby, and they all seemed so doable the day they were created.

We fancied that we were so ready.

And then she came—The precious thing made us a family. She changed the world. Her hair was a thick and black—just like mine—and I knew I could never cut it. Her eyes were so blue—So very blue. They held the ocean and the sky and all in between. Even Peeta had to admit that they didn't differ from his own. Her puckered lips were set stubbornly in her soft little face, and she looked for all the world as if she'd lived a thousand years.

She was wholly ours and ours alone, and when I looked at her, I could only think of all those promises—I knew that they must be kept. _They must be kept._

[XXX]

Among other things, we promised to be a close family for the baby. This promise was easy to keep.

The first few months we spent as a glob, the three of us. I never left Sonnet alone, and Peeta never left my side. Peeta and I were entranced by the new being, and we moved like magnets around the house. We fed the baby together, we dressed the baby together, we played with the baby together, and we slept like three peas in a pea pod, with the baby in the middle.

Peeta took up painting with a new vigor in response to Sonnet's arrival, only ever dropping his work at the sound of her mewls. He must have painted 100 portraits of the baby in the first year. It was easy because she slept a lot, and she was unusually docile as far as babies go. She cooed and crooned, and was perfectly content to stay in my arms for the entire day.

And while the weeks passed in and out like this, we were very much together. Peeta and I were simply trying to figure Sonnet out, trying to make sense of our new life. We watched her while she slept, we bent over backwards to make her laugh and we couldn't help but giggle along with her when it worked. We were happy and calm with our little pink bundle.

[XXX]

We promised to make a book about her—A scrapbook she could have when she was old enough to appreciate it.

The book was bound in creamy white silk and rainbow ribbons, and we filled it with Sonnet, Sonnet, Sonnet. Peeta drew beautiful pictures of her in the book—sleeping, playing, eating; he sketched her in charcoal, graphite, ink with swift and perfect strokes. Her face bloomed on page after page.

I wrote letters to her and sealed them inside. I recorded everything she did—her words, her games, her sounds. We reserved pages for her own original art work too—Her precious scribbles. And we pressed her paint-covered hands and feet into the pages, to preserve some part of her littleness.

The book took us two years to fill, and we tucked it away in a special place for later.

[XXX]

We promised to give the baby books and knowledge.

By the time she was talking, Peeta and I made good on this promise. We read to her every night, from books with beautiful pictures and silly words.

They came from the District's new library—Hard, pliable, of all different colors and textures and patterns, the books turned out to be something of a godsend for Peeta and I—They weren't only for Sonnet. I'd only ever read Capitol-made textbooks in my life, and those had undoubtedly provided a warped view of the world—A very wrong and warped view. Peeta and I began reading for the fun of it—to learn, to know, to think—and I can't say what inspired it.

We read of adventurers—Those who risked their lives and their sanity for the thrill of a hunt, or to save a needy damsel in distress. These were my favorite stories. Peeta once asked me if I was attracted to such adventurers—if (and his face was tomato-red) I wished that I could be married to one, or be whisked away by one. I realized that he was asking, indirectly, if he was _adequate_. And it was a few moments before I started laughing, laughing, laughing at the look of quiet curiosity and discontent on his perfect features, and I kissed him in such a way that would hopefully answer his ridiculous question.

And we certainly read our fill of love stories, Peeta reading more than I in that category. I never had a stomach for the things—Reading about careful caresses never satisfied me quite as much as a touch from Peeta.

But never mind the love stories—We read of many things.

We read of kings and queens, wars and quarrels, philosophies and religions, cultures and foods, wizards and vampires, folktales and fairytales. Many of the books were hundreds of years old, dating from before Panem even existed. They were delicate, like pressed leaves. Others were fairly new, a product of the pent-up creative energy in Panem that was now able to come forward and flourish without fear. Old and new, they were more than entertainment for Peeta and I. They helped us cope. We saw the men and women that died in the Rebellion as martyrs of a glorious cause, heroes worthy of books, and we saw ourselves as characters in a grand scheme, finally enjoying the fruits of our labor and living in a relatively "happy ending"—A trait common to most decently-told stories.

The books put things into perspective.

Thus, reading to Sonnet was an easy promise to keep.

[XXX]

We promised to keep the baby safe, no matter the cost.

She never crossed the street without a parent on each hand, and she wasn't allowed near Haymitch's rambunctious geese. The drunk (more than slightly offended at our disapproval of his animals) accused us of being too tightly wound. "Katniss" he growled deliberately. "The Games are _gone _and the world isn't going to eat her".

But everybody in town knows that it wouldn't hurt Haymitch to be wound just a little tighter. And Games or no Games, the promise was written clearly on our paper, and therefore must be kept.

[XXX]

We promised that the baby would never know hunger.

20 years earlier, this would have been nigh impossible to keep; neither my parents nor Peeta's could have promised so much. But as the daughter of two Victors—a baker and a huntress, no less—, Sonnet was never seen without an artfully crafted pastry in her tiny fingers.

And when Haymitch told me that my baby was chubby, I only smiled in delight.

[XXX]

Not all promises were easily kept, however; there is no such thing as perfection, not in anything. We had promised that we would never fight in front of the baby. We had promised to never yell at the baby for doing something childish, to never scream in front of the baby, to never let her see that some nightmares scared us.

All of these—broken. On more than one occasion. Broken with tears and further promises never to break them again.

[XXX]

Now, sitting on a picnic blanket with Peeta and watching the sun set behind the frolicking figure of our daughter, I oh-so-timidly ask my husband if Sonnet might not want a little brother or sister. I smile when I feel his arms freeze up around me, and he grins into my hair. I've surprised him—he asks me if I'm joking.

But I'm not afraid this time and I meant what I said—I meant it absolutely. Our family is too perfect to not wish for more. Perhaps the fear will come later, but right now I know that Peeta and I are good enough at keeping promises to handle another baby.

**A/N: Hello! I thought it was about time that I updated. Yeesh. What do you guys think about this chapter? I'm quite undecided. It gave me more grief than you probably realize...**

**And has anyone seen the newly released pictures of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss? Not too shabby, in my opinion... Not too shabby at all!**


	19. Just Like Always

**The Hunger Games Series as well as Peeta and Katniss belong to Suzanne Collins—completely and unquestionably so.**

Just Like Always

_(8 months later)_

Katniss's POV

The clouds are gray and fat, the sun dipping out of sight.

I am on my porch writing a letter. It sits on my knees, blank and white except for a carefully written _Dear Mother_ in the upper left hand corner. My fingers trace the words, slip along the outer edges, contemplate the things that I _could_ write on the paper. Only it's so hard to find the right things.

I sit for a very long time and grind out sentence by painstaking sentence, altogether unsure of any of them.

_Dear Mother, why is it that we've grown so far apart and I don't mind?_

Erase that.

And I pay little attention to the rain that starts dripping down my head and onto the paper, staining it and blurring the words that I didn't like anyways. _Dear Mother, I promise these aren't teardrops... _It's only when I catch the sound of sloshy footsteps that I look up from my work and see a grinning Peeta splashing his way towards me, yellow umbrella in hand.

A grin cracks my face.

He sits next to me without a word, positions the umbrella over our heads while I take him in—he looks healthy and perfect, all golden ringlets and clear blue eyes. I try to ignore his burn scars.

"What are you writing?" he asks, glancing at my frustrated scrawls.

"A Letter. To my mother".

He nods in understanding and smiles. "Well would you consider taking it inside by the fire?"

I let out something of a grunt and let him lead me into my house—a house much too lonely and spacious without him. We settle ourselves in the kitchen, on the soft maroon sofa draped with blankets and pillows, and still more blankets. When Peeta asks, I admit that I'm hungry. I continue writing my letter while he proceeds to make sandwiches.

And the sounds he makes bustling around the kitchen are very calming, but I don't look up from my paper—he has caught me staring before.

"Turkey or ham?" he asks.

"Turkey... And can I have mine on a cheese bun?"_ As if he would refuse._

"Of course".

I've tucked the letter away (for now or for good I don't much know or care) and we're scarfing our turkey sandwiches between careful conversation when Peeta stiffens next to me; my breath catches because I know what's coming. I watch his eyes darken, his eyebrows make an angry shape that I don't like at all. He grabs the arm of the sofa, shaking, pale, unstable; makes an attempt to shove me out of the kitchen.

"Peeta..?"

"Katniss—please—leave the room—_Now_" His voice trembles and chokes.

And I surprise myself by refusing him. "No, I want to help you—"

But he only growls—feral but well-intentioned—and I'm about to protest further when suddenly it ends—I think—and Peeta slumps into the couch, head buried in his hands, still shaking, still pale. I'm not allowed to touch him. I protest that it wasn't bad but he shrugs me off.

I ask him if talking helps, and he weakly nods.

So we talk—more like I talk and he mumbles in half-hearted answer, but we talk. I assure him that everything is real and safe and there's no danger—especially not from me—and he finally lets me take his calloused hand in my own, lets me press it to my cheek. But he's still upset—still won't look me in the face and just _smile_ it off—and I ask him why.

"I won't hurt you" I murmur.

"It's not that I'm scared of you, Katniss". He's vexed. "I'm scared _for_ you. Scared that I'll _hurt_ you. What if I lost control with you one day and nobody was around? What if the demons took over and I couldn't stop them? What then? It wouldn't be very hard for me to—"

Images flash through my mind—scary—and I blink them out. "Are you saying I'm not strong enough to put up a good fight?" It's meant to lighten the air but Peeta only looks at me and cringes—takes in my skinny limbs and my overall reed-like appearance and cringes. "Peeta", I say. "If I feared for my life then I wouldn't stick around".

He is very silent for a very long time—brooding, reflecting, struggling within. I know how much he loves to be the good guy. I know this is hard.

"Why do you trust me?"

He says it like it's a simple question (which it is not). I draw in a long breath and heave it out. My words come carefully and timidly—even somewhat begrudgingly—but I mean every one.

"Because you... Because you want to be good, Peeta. You _are_ good. You _always have been_ good. The hijacking wasn't your fault, and I know you're fighting it every day, trying to disarm it. I don't know if it will ever be fixed completely... I just don't know. But even when you _are_ dangerous, I trust you to figure out what's real and what's not. I trust you to fight the lies. They didn't succeed in breaking you, when they did this to you..." I pause. "They came close, but you're much to strong for that. Much too good".

I can't read his face—there's something going on underneath the freckles but it's decidedly undecipherable_. _His brow is furrowed, his lips parted, and he's leaning forward ever so slightly. I think he's going to say something—and I swear to God, if he contradicts or argues anything I just said—but then he kisses me on the mouth for the first time since he came back and everything falls out of my head for a split-second. His lips are just as warm as my memories tell me and_ I've missed them so much. _The kiss is soft and not long enough—not nearly long enough, but I don't ask him for more.

"You're a lot more sentimental than you let on" he says quietly.

I scowl. "Well don't _tell_ anyone".

I went for hostile but he only laughs—it's genuine—and I finally get that smile out of him.

"I should go" he says, noting the blackness outside of the window. "But I'll come by in the morning with breakfast, and we can work on the book. I have some new sketches that I can put in..."

"You could stay the night, you know" I interrupt_. Please._

He hesitates, starts to speak, but I whisper—

"I know you still have nightmares too. And I trust you, remember?"

And I see something like relenting in his countenance—relenting to himself, forgetting the doubt. He carefully takes my hand—presses it to his lips with eyes closed, very softly—and leads me upstairs to my room. We turn off the lights and crawl into my bed, hold each other in the darkness.

But before I fall asleep, he mumbles in my ear. "Katniss?"

"Mmmm?"

"Why are you writing to your mother? Are you... lonely?"

"What? No". I turn myself around to face him. "No. _She's_ lonely".

He is silent.

"I'm not lonely, Peeta" I say again. "I've got you, remember? Just like always".

_Just like always._

He smiles at this, gently tucks my head under his chin, pulls me just a little closer, and we sleep until first light—undisturbed by specters and very comfortable.

**A/N: Had to. Just had to. Constructive criticism?**


	20. In Between

**(I didn't create Finnick or Annie Odair... I just like to write about them)**

In Between

_(3 years later)_

Finnick's POV

"Finnick, if fish could speak, what do you suppose they would say?"

Sitting cross-legged in the white sand, wearing her favorite sun dress and awaiting the answer to her question, Annie is a very pretty sight to behold. She hides in her tangled hair, but I can see her eyes—expectant, measuring, musing.

She loves to talk nonsense.

"Well, Annie my love," I answer as I grab her tiny ankles and drag her towards me. "I imagine that they would weep very loudly."

She laughs and wiggles even closer. "But why on earth would they be so unhappy? Fish are such chipper little creatures!"

"Oh, I beg to differ," I say, combing her hair back with my fingers so that I might see her face. "They're quite jealous."

"Of what, exactly?"

"Jealous of mermaids, of course! They don't possess the beauty nor the natural grace that mermaids do—Have you ever seen, for example, a flounder perform a perfect somersault in the water?"

And she giggles again, her little mouth twisting in skepticism. "Finn, mermaids don't even exist."

"If fish can speak, then mermaids can at least _exist_, my dear."

She hesitates. "It's different."

"Not at all! In fact, I know at least one mermaid."

"No, you don't—you're teasing."

"I'm not."

"Then what's her name?"

_Is that jealousy I hear in your voice, my sweet Annie? _"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," I say.

"Finnick…"

She's pouting.

"Well you know her too, love," I hint. "Actually, you may even know her better than I."

More sulking—she's creased her pretty brow.

"Her name starts… with an 'A'"

I watch her face carefully until it brightens.

"Oh," she giggles and slaps my chest. "Me? Am I the mermaid?"

My own laughter peals out, a deeper and louder companion to hers. "Yes," I say. "You are indeed the mermaid—The only mermaid I've ever met. And you certainly exist, don't you?"

She grins and kisses my nose. I allow her to trace the jagged scar on my neck, I obey when she demands that I close my eyes and listen to the waves.

Several minutes pass. Her fingers find the scars on my arms.

"Finnick?"

Her voice is hushed, vulnerable. I open one eye. _I'm listening, mermaid._

"Do _you_ exist?" she asks. "Or is this just a dream? I'm not going to wake up alone again, am I? You're real?"

I grimace. _She wonders if I'm still real_.

I know that I have ceased to exist in _her_ world—bodily, at least. And that now I live in this in-between where I wait all day long. She visits while she's sleeping—my land is part of her dreams, and she can come to share a morning on the hot sand with me. But eventually she has to leave, and I'm left waiting again.

And waiting.

Sometimes I find my way out of the in-between—I find loopholes and windows through which I can go looking for Annie in her world.

But only sometimes.

So I don't know how to answer the question—Do I exist? _It depends on where you want me to exist, love._

"Of course I exist, Annie," I croon, stroking her hair. "You can feel me, can't you? I'm holding you—I'm right here." I flex my arm muscles. "And what about these babies? Do they feel real?"

But she doesn't laugh. She only looks up at me with her large eyes—open and trusting and confused—and entreats me not to be "silly" anymore.

"I know I'm going to wake up soon," she murmurs, sounding so very sad. "And I know you'll be gone, when I do. And during the day I'll have to pretend like I want to continue living, and I'll have to be strong and happy for Rollin, and then I'll go to sleep again at night—and maybe I'll see you when I dream, maybe I won't. I know how it works by now, Finnick."

I cradle her cheeks in my palms, and speak very softly, trying to comfort. "What would you have me do about it, darling? I don't like it any more than you do."

_I'm in anguish, mermaid. Can't you see?_

Her lips quiver as she says "I just want you to come home, Finn." I squeeze her very close to me to keep her tears from coming, but they can't be stopped—there is, after all, reason for sorrow.

"God, I want the same thing," I manage to whisper before my voice peters out.

And we cry quietly together under the white sun—I can only pretend to be so strong. And when my eyes are dry I kiss my Annie until I feel her slipping away, until her edges become blurred and she begins to evaporate, a mirage before my eyes.

Before she's gone, I say "Chin up, my dear. I'll always be waiting for you."

And I catch an image of that smile that should never leave her face before I'm completely alone—alone and waiting once again.

**A/N: It's very odd for me to write from a man's perspective—especially if I'm writing a romantic scene.**

**Anyways, please tell me if you are confused. Have I explained Finnick's state-of-being well enough? I imagine that he's not quite able to move on to whatever comes after death, because he left things unfinished—he left behind the only person that really matters to him and he's too confused and distraught to go on without her—at least for the first few years, anyways.**

**Thank you for all of the feedback!**


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